Home Movies (1954)

MOVIE IDEAS Car Design Like most of America s male population, I'm very much interested in cars: how they run, how they handle and how they are designed. This is the season when the 1955 models begin to appear at local dealers. As I see each one I wonder why the car looks as it does. I try to see if it has everything I'd like in a car. I try to figure why its design is exactly as it is. This gave me an idea for a film which I have just completed. Many of America's magazines have prepared stories on car styling. I've been very interested in seeing these picttures because they often represent the cars we'll see and drive in the future. I tried to visualize how they'd look and how the design had grown. In my town there is an art school which has a course in car design. I went to the school and watched the course. Then. I got two of the students to help me make my film. I started with a still photograph of a present day car. The students began changing the look to make it become one of the "dream" cars. In a sense the scenes were animation, since the work involved in drawing such a picture was so time consuming that it could not be recorded step by step. However, I did pick the highlights of the transformation and explain why changes were made and how they'd be done. For example, the headlights on the car I used as my test car, were lengthned to overhang the lenses. Called "frenching" the movie explained how such practices made the car seem to be lots longer even though no more than three inches were added to the car's true length. The film was finished recently and so much interest was shown in the film that I've already had it shown on TV twice, and have it booked for showing to several men's clubs. It looks as if it should earn a little money for me before it is through. But money or not, I've had a lot of fun making a very good movie. That's a lot of payment right there. •» * * The Kids There is an old adage, "children should be seen not heard" but this is tough to do — especially when you are a kid. The world is a fascinating old place when you are five years old. And, you see it from a different point of view. I wanted to do a film which exam ined the world from the point of view7 of a five year old. I wanted to see what they saw : toads, mud puddles and knees. It seemed as if they always saw just knees when they were around adults. The conversation meant so little . . . '"and Jim said to him You are an Offic-ious mumble mumble ..." The words meant so little. You'd look up, high up, into a sea of faces but they weren't looking at you. You tugged on a knee. The face looked down. A hand, twice the size of your head, reached down and kindly patted you on your head but that wasn't what you wanted. The words kept up. Nothing you could understand. I did the story of a little boy. I shot everything from his viewpoint. It was just a day in the life of the boy. He was not shown . . . just his voice. The camera was the boy. It went places for him and did things for him. It looked at toads and mud puddles and knees. It rode up in elevators holding firmly to mother's hand, high up somewhere while knees pressed in against him. It ate cookies and played with kids down the street. I can take no credit for the film. It was good, really good, but I'm not bragging for there is some kind of magic in the life of a five year old so you just can't go wrong. Try to re-live that age. Do the things you do today but try to do them as a fiveyear-old would do them. If you can do that your movie is half done. The other half will be easy. » » * Baby in the House Man! A new baby sure upsets household routine. We just got one and nothing is the same as it was before. Sure it's wonderful, but, it's certainly different. We get up at all hours: day and night. We walk lightly. We whisper. We heat milk and change diapers. \^ e stay home and seldom go out anymore. Sure we love it but it's not like it was before the baby arrived. I thought it might be funny to do a movie on the two ways of life. First, I filmed a typical day without junior. It was just that, typical too, for we're normal people. Get up at 7 a. m., showered, shaved and ate. Then rushed off to work while my wife leisurely did the dishes and cleaned the house. Then she shopped and I came home. In the evening we ate, did the dishes and either visited friends or watched television. When the babv came that was all changed. I got up at 2 a. m., to heat the milk and feed the baby. Then still groggy, I got up at 7 a. m. to shower, shave and check the baby. At 8, just before I left for the office, I heated the milk, fed the baby while my wife, sleepy from earlier risings, arose and started sorting diapers. By 8:15 I was ready to leave and my wife embarked on a very tough day's schedule. She washed the diapers, made formulae, washed the baby, gave him a sun bath, changed diapers, changed diapers, changed diapers, and cleaned. By then it was supper time and she'd barely been able to get supper started by the time I came home. She was out of groceries and I had to do the shopping for her. \\e tried to keep the film light, funny as it were, for we were not poking fun at babies but having fun with them. We love our child and we wanted to get that over in the film. We also wanted to get over the idea that it's funny how ideals or things which couples cherish before a child is born are wiped out by the funny little face and helpless little creature you have now. * * * Magazine Stand In olden times, say fifty years ago, the pot-bellied stove was the corner gathering place. It was limited to adults, children were left at home. Today the entire deal is changed. There is no pot bellied stove and the corner meeting hall is now the magazine stand. Instead of adults it is the kids who gather there. It is the old folks, now, who are left at home. Somehow the arrival of a new batch of comic books is a sure sign for a legion of kids to descend upon the local stand. They gather around reading each page, devouring each word. I wanted to film this. I set up by camera using the "hidden" technique. I received the permission of the owner to hide my camera behind a pile of boxes and I filmed the various techniques which kids use to read comic books. Some sit, up straight as a West Point cadet. Others scrounge down, as if their spines were made of jelly. Some read with their mouths while others remain as tight lipped as an old maid. Some seem entranced by the printed matter on each page. Still others are gregarious and look up constantly not wishing to miss one of their friends when he or she passes the stand. I shot most of my scenes with a • See "MOVIE IDEAS" en Page 442 414